Something along the lines of lowering poison proc rate outside of Envenom and increase the proc rate during in order to make for a more active rotation. I feel that the difference between keeping Envenom up or not is too small as it is (15% extra proc rate). Low uptime should really hurt while managing high uptime should feel rewarding.

Further on, the spec does have a really boring cooldown in the form of Vendetta. I would like to see a cooldown that actually interact with poisons, the main concept of Assassination.

Something along the lines of lowering poison proc rate outside of Envenom and increase the proc rate during in order to make for a more active rotation. I feel that the difference between keeping Envenom up or not is too small as it is (15% extra proc rate). Low uptime should really hurt while managing high uptime should feel rewarding.

Further on, the spec does have a really boring cooldown in the form of Vendetta. I would like to see a cooldown that actually interact with poisons, the main concept of Assassination.

I can agree with this. Having a glorified hunter's mark as a cooldown is a bit underwhelming. I would like to see the current interaction with the four piece bonus implemented as the baseline cooldown but have it stack crit, haste, AND mastery.

I can agree with this. Having a glorified hunter's mark as a cooldown is a bit underwhelming. I would like to see the current interaction with the four piece bonus implemented as the baseline cooldown but have it stack crit, haste, AND mastery.

Vendetta increases the amount of DP than can be applied (to any target) to 20 for a set period of time?

-DOH!- it doesn't even work that way anymore lol

Kinda sad that they took the stacking away. Could have made it a stacking debuff and when it hits a certain amount of stacks, you could interact with it in some way, f.ex. consume it for a personal buff or a stronger debuff.

Kinda sad that they took the stacking away. Could have made it a stacking debuff and when it hits a certain amount of stacks, you could interact with it in some way, f.ex. consume it for a personal buff or a stronger debuff.

Envenom used to be available to everyone and would consume whatever stacks of DP were on the target so the overall damage of an envenom was dependent upon both CP's and stacks of DP. Makes you wonder why they would take a cool mechanic like that out of the game.

Envenom used to be available to everyone and would consume whatever stacks of DP were on the target so the overall damage of an envenom was dependent upon both CP's and stacks of DP. Makes you wonder why they would take a cool mechanic like that out of the game.

The took it away because it was confusing and other specs started using envenom in their rotation, also sometimes the use of envenom to remove deadly poison was sometimes beneficial eg to allow a blind.

The old concept was envenom removing deadly poison, dealing instant nature damage, and increasing chance to reapply poison. It still does that, but back then people read it and though "eh? Why would I want to loose all my deadly poison?" especially as the immediate damage was visually lower than that of eviscerate.

The deadly poison stacks were removed to reduce our ramp up time. Applying 5 stacks was tedious, especially when you needed quick target swaps such as in pve.

Deadly poison and instant poison ( now removed and merged ) used to be separate mechanics - you'd put deadly on your offhand, instant on your mainland, and hope that deadly proced enough to refresh itself. Deadly lasted 15 seconds, but there was still the occasional unlucky combat rogue who's deadly poison stacks would fall off due to bad rng. Combat rogues were running around with double wound poison during wotlk because although the damage it delt was lower (it used to deal damage in wotlk. In tbc it didn't deal damage, stacked 5 times at 10% healing reduction per stack) it proced far more oftern.

I'm actually reasonably supportive of the changed to envenom. It wasn't viable for non-assassinations, and it was confusing as to whether or not it was better than eviscerate. The new version functions much better than the old.

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Why is Subulety so strong at the moment? I mean to break it down as a spec - why? Is it just shadow dance? Is it the high active damage? Is it the mastery and slice dice? Is it honour amongst theives?

What is making that spec thrive? How can those abilities be included into other specs without feeling like a copy-paste?

What kind of question ist that? It is viable because it does enough damage, yes. But i was talking about the gameplay, the feeling, the "flow".
Even though it's inconsequential, big numbers are more satisfying on a visceral level then many small hits, always been everywhere, which is a reason why casters and 2h users hold such a big appeal, they have bigger numbers by design. When i crit in combat spec with my SS, in normal circumstances its somewhere between 80k and 120k. That's not a crit for an equal geared caster (be aware of generalizations and missing knowledge on my part, this is mostly hearsay and extrapolation of my cloth alts)

The core issue is that everyone wants to make an immediate, meaningful impact with whatever action they are taking at that moment. On a more conscious level, you are content with hitting SnD and knowing you just boosted your total DPS by 30% but popping SD and hurting your target with ambushes and eviscerates in the hundredthousands is just so much more "yes" then looking at a log and seeing your place at the top, even though it might not help.

I would love for Subtley's tree to be split and put between assass and combat.

and change the 3rd tree to a Spellblade. Basically they would use the Leather pieces Balance druids and MW monks used INT leather.

They would also use all INT/SP weapons.

Damage and Atk power would be increased by SP kind of like Fistweaving with monks but to a greater extent, damage would be CP-generating magical slashes and CP spending Blasts of energy/big magical cuts/magic wounds. All would count as Magic damage so it would bypass Armor, making it effective as a PvP class against all armor types.

Black Hole Gash: You cause the Singularities built by Spectral Slash to become unstable crushing the targets organs dealing X% Attack power and Shadow Damage per Combo point and 20% of the damage again per Singularity on the target. THe target falls over in pain rooting them in place for 8secs (2secs in PvP).

Absence of Light: The rogue enters a form of Pure Shadow, increasing damage by 20% and removing all impairments from his body.

just a few, all in all I want it to be like a cross between a DK and Shadowpriest, but based around cosmics energys and the Nether.

The fun of a spec is pure opinion. I personally don't notice any of the big numbers as sub because my brain is slow and I'm too busy trying to maintain a good rotation. I like sub because it has more stuff to do in order to max your dps. As has been pointed out before, more stuff to maintain doesn't nessecarily make a spec more fun, but less stuff certainly makes it more boring.

Yes, but "why" is it good. The dps of other specs is technically hire in most circumstances.

I personally love it because it's the most active and rewarding spec of all 3. You really feel that the damage output is a direct consequence of you hitting active damage abilities, while in assassination you just feel like you are keeping up buffs and debuffs and in combat spamming buttons like a madman (and that can also be fun).

Now, why is so good? is simply because they buffed the damage and it benefits greatly of the better gear, they didn't make any change to how it works. The big damage output is consequenece of the find weakness debuff and the high AP you can achieve thanks to the 30% extra agility passive. The playstyle of the spec is to manage small burst phases.

Also, we can't forget assurance of consequences, that means you'll have more shadow dance and vanish, that trinket has really given life to sub and combat.

There are similar skills which are far more interesting, f.ex. Focus Fire for BM hunters, a stacking buff which can then be consumed giving you a new buff. The problem with SnD, as I see it, is that it doesn't interact with any other rogue ability but give Sub some extra energy every 2 seconds.

I'm quite sure we'll either see a revamp of SnD or see it gone next expansion.

I would love for Subtley's tree to be split and put between assass and combat.

and change the 3rd tree to a Spellblade. Basically they would use the Leather pieces Balance druids and MW monks used INT leather.

They would also use all INT/SP weapons.

Damage and Atk power would be increased by SP kind of like Fistweaving with monks but to a greater extent, damage would be CP-generating magical slashes and CP spending Blasts of energy/big magical cuts/magic wounds. All would count as Magic damage so it would bypass Armor, making it effective as a PvP class against all armor types.

Black Hole Gash: You cause the Singularities built by Spectral Slash to become unstable crushing the targets organs dealing X% Attack power and Shadow Damage per Combo point and 20% of the damage again per Singularity on the target. THe target falls over in pain rooting them in place for 8secs (2secs in PvP).

Absence of Light: The rogue enters a form of Pure Shadow, increasing damage by 20% and removing all impairments from his body.

just a few, all in all I want it to be like a cross between a DK and Shadowpriest, but based around cosmics energys and the Nether.

I'm really not sure if you're trying to take the piss now. A cross between a Mage/rogue sounds interesting, I can imagine a few instant cast spells generating combo points or being a finishing move - but I absolutely do not want intellect gear or spirit mechanics.

Cosmic energies and nether just wouldnt happen.

Rogues arnt spell casters, but they utilise on minor mysterism, that could extend to shadow magic or "physical" magic such as fire if you can imagine fire being treated as a commonly available weapon rather than the results of magic.

One other, slightly out there, possibility is arcane magic because of demon hunters utilising it. However, such a class would likely be a demon hunter class in its own right. If demon hunters had stealth, I'd probably reroll one.

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Originally Posted by Chokolata

In its current implementation, yeah me too.

There are similar skills which are far more interesting, f.ex. Focus Fire for BM hunters, a stacking buff which can then be consumed giving you a new buff. The problem with SnD, as I see it, is that it doesn't interact with any other rogue ability but give Sub some extra energy every 2 seconds.

I'm quite sure we'll either see a revamp of SnD or see it gone next expansion.

It will probably be combat only, then we will probably see attack speed increase baked into envenom or the poison application buff increased.

For combat, it will probably be redesigned. Maybe double melee hits instead of increased attack speed.

No idea about Subulety, theyll probably get their own finishing move, something that stuns or dots and deals instant damage and replaces kidney shot or rupture.

There also the possibility that they could lower the maximum combo point cost of slice and dice, or any finishing move for that matter.

Imagine if slice and dice only had 2 combo point ranks, 1 combo point = 15 seconds, 2 combo points = 30.
So if you've got 5 combo points and you use slice and dice, you still have 3 left.

That in itself would be quite a buff, if finishing moves consumed less combo points and hit proportiately the same as 5 combo points - but it might trivialise combo points further as a mechanic.

It will probably be combat only, then we will probably see attack speed increase baked into envenom or the poison application buff increased.

For combat, it will probably be redesigned. Maybe double melee hits instead of increased attack speed.

No idea about Subulety, theyll probably get their own finishing move, something that stuns or dots and deals instant damage and replaces kidney shot or rupture.

There also the possibility that they could lower the maximum combo point cost of slice and dice, or any finishing move for that matter.

Imagine if slice and dice only had 2 combo point ranks, 1 combo point = 15 seconds, 2 combo points = 30.
So if you've got 5 combo points and you use slice and dice, you still have 3 left.

That in itself would be quite a buff, if finishing moves consumed less combo points and hit proportiately the same as 5 combo points - but it might trivialise combo points further as a mechanic.[/QUOTE]

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Random idea, what if Subulety had a ranged - friendly pure shadow damage finishing move that replaced eviscerate? It would ignore armour and be ranged friendly, which would make it different to envenom.